Workers occupy Kherson Engineering Factory, elect a workers' council and list their demands.
The workers of the Kherson Engineering Factory occupied an administrative building on the premises at 9.30 today. The factory guards offered little resistance, and none of the occupiers were injured.
A 5-person workers' council was elected by a mass meeting at the factory gates, with Aleksey Nimchinov mandated to negotiate on behalf of the workers. The council has taken the former technical director's office as a meeting room. The chair of the council, Leonid Nimchinov, has called on workers throughout the country to undertake similar actions in solidarity. Attempts are to be made to contact the workers of the Lviv Bus Plant and other factories.
The main demands are:
- payment of wage arrears (near 4.5 million Ukrainian hryvnias);
- nationalization of the plant without compensation to its owner;
- the production and distribution of the plant's goods – high-quality farm machinery - to be secured by the state.
The workers have threatened "the toughest" action if their demands are not met.
Wages dating from September 2008 are still unpaid, and the occupation follows a protest yesterday. During a previous meeting with management the workers were told the plant would not be saved.
Plant contact: Zakhar Popovich, +380 91 114 01 76
Sources: http://livasprava.livejournal.com/216607.html
Comments
The owner of the plant has
The owner of the plant has filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office. The complaint talked about a "raid" and "seizure" by some crowds of "masked people" but the prosecutor apparently doesn't take it seriously. The workers on the other hand want to make a criminal case against management of the factory.
The workers met with the governor who said that they could stay in the factory until the owner came and negotiated with them. The workers renamed the factory to a "state-owned factory" reflecting their desire to work for state capitalists instead of private ones.